Charles Lenard Neal was born in Longview Texas on January 30th, 1931. After WWII the Dodger system churned out infield prospects like weeds. Many went to other teams, Chico Carrasquel, Bobby Morgan, Bob Lillis, Chico Fernandez and Billy Hunter to name a few. Robinson, Reese, and Gilliam were impossible to dislodge. But Neal was a keeper. His game was speed. But he was the invisible Dodger, overshadowed by a roster of All-Stars and six future Hall of Famers.
Neal came from a baseball family. His father, Houston was a carpenter, and his mother, Verdell, took in laundry. His dad formed a sandlot team. His older son, Jim, played for him, but Charlie was afraid of the hard ball. When he joined the team at 13, he got hit on the elbow his first game and started crying. After that, his father and brother pitched balls at him until he got over his fear. The Neals manned the outfield with Charlie in left, his dad in center and Jim in right. Charlie switched to SS when that position became vacant. There was no baseball team at Longview Colored High School, but he excelled in basketball and as a running back in football.
Charlie was 16 when Robinson signed with the Dodgers, opening white baseball to young black players. He began playing on semi-pro teams, first in Sweetwater Texas, where he met his future wife, Annie Lee Willis. The Tigers in Shreveport offered him a job in the summer before his senior year, but he was afraid he would be homesick. “My mom took care of that” he said. “She really got on me and told me to get on down to Shreveport and be a man.” In later years he also played for the Atlanta Black Crackers in the Negro Southern League.
After graduating from high school, he married Annie on September 12, 1949. That winter he was driving a meat truck when the Dodgers signed him. His bonus was a train ticket to spring training in Vero Beach. Starting in Class-D in 1950, Charlie played SS and 2B. The system was loaded with SS at the time, Zimmer, Lillis and Fernandez. He broke out in 1951 at Lancaster, a Class-B team in Pennsylvania. He hit .323, had an OPS of .955. He had 24 triples, 12 homers, and 22 stolen bases. He led the league in total bases, triples and steals.
Neal and outfielder, John Glenn became the first black players at Newport News, Virginia in the Class-B Piedmont League. That was in 1953. Neal and Lillis turned a league record 199 double plays. Joining Zimmer at AAA St. Paul in 54, He had another standout season, hitting 18 HRs and posting a .792 OPS. Zimmer, who was the same age was ahead of him on the depth chart. Zimmer was called up to Brooklyn in July as the designated successor to Pee Wee.
Not that Neal was being ignored, the Red Sox offered 100 to 125 thousand for him. But farm director, Fresco Thompson, said he figured in the teams’ plans for 1955. Robinson was entering his ninth year as a Dodger. The Red Sox still had no black players. The Yankees had signed Elston Howard, leaving only the Red Sox, Phillies and Tigers as the all-white teams.
The Dodgers five frontline black players made up a majority of the lineup when Don Newcombe was pitching, Campy, Robinson, Gilliam and Sandy Amoros. Joe Black was recovering from a sore arm. Neal and Cuban SS, Fernandez made a strong bids to make the team in spring training. In a magazine article, O’Malley was quoted as saying there is no such thing as a saturation point for black players. But Dick Young, the Daily News most read sportswriter disagreed and wrote, when it comes time to trim the squad down to 25, the retention of 8 negroes would bring about a percentage of 32%. I honestly do not believe that major league baseball is ready for that step right about now.
Neal and Fernandez were sent down before opening day. Black was traded to the Reds. Neal’s new manager, Greg Mulleavy, said he was a better fielder than Robinson was when he broke in. The younger and quicker Gilliam had forced Robinson off of second base, now the younger and quicker Neal forced Gilliam off of second in 56. Gilliam became his roommate and mentor along with Robinson.
Neal played in only 62 games, hitting with little power, so Alston benched him because the team was having trouble scoring runs. He slashed .287/.353/.382 over the year. With Robinson retiring after the 1956 season, Reese turning 39, the infield was shook up again. When Robinson’s heir apparent, Randy Jackson, hurt his knee, Neal and three others took a turn at the spot. Zimmer took over at SS for Reese but did not hit, so the infield was shaken up again with Neal moving to SS and Reese to third.
The normally quiet Neal became a principal in the Dodgers beanbrawl of the year. On July 11, Gilliam, another quiet sort, objected to a close pitch, dropped a bunt down the first base line and wrestled with the Reds pitcher, Raul Sanchez. Reds 3B, Don Hoak, charged into the fray, Neal wanting to protect his buddy, leveled Hoak with a single punch. Hoak tried to retaliate, but Gil Hodges wrapped the red faced Redleg in a bear hug. Hoak promised retaliation, league president, Warren Giles, told him to cool it. Gilliam, Neal and Sanchez were fined 100$.
In his first season of full time play, Neal hit .270/.356/.411 with 12 HR’s. But he was charged with 24 errors in just 100 games at short. The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958. The move was traumatic for some, but not Neal. He had gone home to Longview every winter, where he and Ann were raising their daughter, Brenda. He soon bought a house in Southern California, and their second daughter, Debbie, was born there.
In 1958 the team moved into the L.A. Coliseum. The field was shoehorned into a football stadium and the left-field fence was only 251 feet away, punctuated by a 42 ft. high screen. Neal took full advantage and clubbed 22 HR’s a career-high, 14 of them at home to tie Gil Hodges for the team lead.
On advice from Walter Alston, he adopted a more upright stance with his feet closer together. Charlie is mainly a wrist hitter, scout Andy High said. Because he does not have the heft of guys like Hodges or Kluzewski, he uppercuts the ball. He also had a good year on defense back at his preferred position and the Dodgers set a league record recording 198 double plays. Those opportunities were there because Dodger pitching was quite frankly, very bad. They gave up the most HR’s in the league with the screen looming behind them. The team fell to 7th place, their worst finish since WWII.
In 1959 Neal was a huge part of the Dodgers’ surprise resurgence and run to the pennant. He, Gilliam and winter trade pick up, Wally Moon, were the only everyday players while Alston juggled an ever-changing lineup filled with over the hill Boys of Summer, and young players up through the organization. On the seasons final day, Neal hit a two-run homer, tripled and scored another run as the Dodgers beat the Cubs 7-1 to finish in a tie with the Braves. Charlie went 3-5 in the first playoff game, and homered in the second.
As the Dodgers played the first game of the Series in Chicago with no day off, they were pounded 11-0. In game 2, Charlie suffering from stomach pains he thought signaled an ulcer, fumbled a first-inning ground ball that led to 2 runs. Chicago was up 2-0 in the 5th when Neal lofted a long flyball to left, LF Al Smith retreated to the wall and watched as it landed a couple rows in. An excited fan spilled a beer in Smith’s face. There is a famous photo of that moment.
Essegian tied the game with a pinch homer in the 7th. After Gilliam walked, Neal hit a shot into the center-field bullpen where White Sox pitcher Billy Pierce made the catch. It turned out to be the game-winner. Neal would get a run-scoring single in Drysdale’s 3-1 win and he got 3 hits and 2 RBI’s in the clincher, game 6. For the series Charlie went 10-27, a ,370 average, clearly MVP numbers, but it went to Larry Sherry who relieved in 4 games, saving 2 and winning 2. Once more, Charlie was the invisible man. For the season, Charlie hit .287 with 19HR’s, a career-best .802 OPS, 83 RBI’s and 17 stolen bases. He and Moon tied for the league lead in triples with 11. He also earned a Gold Glove and was on the All-Star team.
The Dodgers doubled his salary to 24,000$ for 1960. His fall from the pinnacle of his career was sudden and unexplained. His power disappeared, he dropped to 8 HR’s and 2 triples with a sub .700 OPS. He was as puzzled as everyone else, suddenly he was missing ground balls before they got to him.
As he passed his 30th birthday in 61, injury and illness dragged him down even more. A knee injury in April became infected and he had to be hospitalized. He had an adverse reaction to penicillin was misdiagnosed as chicken pox. By mid season he was joking that next year he would be playing in Houston, where expansion baseball would be played in 1962.
Years later in his autobiography, Maury Wills wrote, Charlie was ill, psychologically and emotionally. If that was so, no one was talking about it. Some teammates did recall both Alston and Durocher berating him. Roger Craig said ” Charlie was the kind of player who did not respond well to rough treatment: if you yell at them in front of other players, they tend to go into a shell”.
The Dodgers held Neal out of the expansion draft, but then they went shopping him around the league. The expansion Mets took the gamble. It was an expensive one too, costing them $100,000, and Lee Walls, who had cost them $125,000 in the draft. Charlie did not complain when he got to Florida, but he said” there comes a time in men’s careers when they might be better off starting somewhere else”. Charlie’s time as a Dodger was over.
He had a lot of ex-Dodgers there with him. Hodges, Zimmer, Labine, Craig, and Pignatano, and a couple of ex-Giants, Hobie Landrith and Sherman Jones. It had been 15 years since Jackie’s debut, and the Mets stayed at the Colonial Inn motel in St. Pete. But black players were not allowed to eat in the motel dining room. So the Mets opened a private dining room so the players could eat together. Neal, Jones, Al Jackson and Sammy Drake bought a junk car to take them to the black part of town on their day off. The Met’s opening day lineup included Neal, Craig, Zimmer, and Hodges. The Mets lost 11-4. Neal drove in the first run in Mets history, and drove in another later in the game.
Charlie was one of the few who looked like a real major leaguer and was hitting .285 in mid-June. The Giants tried to get him for their stretch run, but the Mets felt obligated not to trade him to the Dodgers’ chief rival. He developed a painful cyst in his hand, but the team urged him to postpone surgery until the off-season. Swinging one-handed, his average dropped to .260. His 9 triples led the team and his 58 RBI’s were third best.
The now 32-year-old Neal moved to 3rd in 63. Larry Burright, a former Dodger, and Ron Hunt took over at 2nd. Stengel praised his defense at 3rd, but he hit only .225 in 72 games. He was sent to the Reds on July 1st in a waiver deal that sent him, and C Sammy Taylor for cash and C Jesse Gonder.
The Reds wanted Neal as a utility infielder, but he hit only .156 in 34 games. The Reds released him the next spring ending his 8 year MLB career. Charlie went home to Longview and played semi-pro ball for many years. Neal went on to manage a sporting goods store in Dallas and later owned a security business there. He returned to L.A. in 1971 for the Dodgers’ first old-timers game. It was a three-day reunion with former teammates. Even his Mets manager was there, Casey Stengel, who played for Brooklyn early in the century.
He and his wife Ann divorced in 1977. Charlie would get income from autograph shows in the 80’s and 90’s. Charlie died on Nov 16, 1996, of heart failure. He was invisible to the end, newspapers reported that his death was two days later.
His last baseball card as a Dodger was this 1961 Topps. Charlie was one of my favorite Dodgers in their early years in L.A. He was always in the middle of the big rally’s and the big plays. His sudden loss of skills was a mystery to all of his fans.
You hit another one out of the park, Bear. This is good stuff!
Great read!! Headed to Dodger Stadium for first time visit. Coming from the east coast, so not sure when we will get back. Any advise on where to sit? I have two baseball boys who are always iso a ball, so please take that into consideration. Thank you for your advice.
Stay out of the outfield pavilions (especially left field), unless you want unadulterated rowdiness.
I like to sit on the second (Loge) level, near 3rd base and the home field dugout. Practically any season on Loge is a good view of the game.
The stadium has been redesigned to make it walkable. Try to get there early and sit in the seats behind the bullpens in RF or LF before going to the seats you purchase.
You can park near Union Station and pre-game at Philippe’s for a great French Dip sandwich (they claim to be the original), or get the best Taquitos at Cielito Lindo, then walk over to Union Station to take the shuttle to the Stadium. I love the shuttle because it bypasses all traffic in and out of the stadium and you don’t have to worry about trying to find your car.
Thank you!
It’s pretty crazy how guys just lose it. The Negro League had some pretty interesting team names. Thanks for the lesson, OldBear.
It looks like the Dodgers are starting to look more like the Dodgers last night. I enjoyed watching Julio carve up the team formerly known as the Indians. I was also really impressed with David Price’s one inning. Pitching to the middle of the order K, K, Ground Out. Easy inning. Graterol looked the part, coming in with 2 on 1 out and got a ground ball and a K.
The offense wasn’t as good as the final score (8 runs in a very sloppy ninth inning by a much of AAAA guys and prospects), but was good enough with some bright spots. Cody Bellinger didn’t strike out the entire game, got a cheap hit and hit a ball hard on a nice play at SS. Invisible man, AJ Pollock was 2-2 with a bomb and Lux and Lamb had hits.
Today will be a fun game to watch as Ryan Pepiot gets the start against Corey Seager’s Rangers. Bleh, how horrible that sounds. I hope to see lineups that’ll start to resemble Opening Day, but I think that’s doubtful with a day game after a night game, a day off tomorrow and get away day on Saturday. I guess we’ll have to wait until the Freeway Series begins.
Some of the things I’ve observed in Spring Training…
Mookie Betts doesn’t look ready. They’re probably trying not to put much pressure on that hip.
Freddie and Trea are really good hitters.
Muncy doesn’t look right and seems to have played 3B more often than 2B.
JT is slowly fading before our eyes.
Gavin Lux takes too many close pitches and isn’t getting any of the calls.
Belli looks like a little league kid learning how to hit for the first time.
Eddie Rios and Jake Lamb are both on a mission.
Michael Busch and Miguel Vargas can hit in the bigs right now. Both need more work with the gloves, but aren’t as bad as advertised.
There’s so much good pitching on this team, it’s ridiculous.
I am now comfortable with a Bueller, Urias, Kershaw and Gonsolin rotation. I’m a bit concerned about “placeholder” Heaney, but he has talent. Let’s see if the Dodgers can extract it.
The bullpen has some future closers. It will be interesting to see how shows up and grabs that job.
Victor Gonzales and Brusdar Graterol look unhittable. Big Foot, David Price looks like he put in some work at the back fields. Cleavinger will be this year’s Vesia. Vesia is struggling a little bit.
Thanks. I really liked Charlie when he played. The Cardinals scored 15 runs in the 9th inning yesterday, scoring 29 over all. Talk about a blowout inning. I think 12 position players is a pipe dream. They need 13 at least. And you know Alberto is making the roster no matter what even with his late arrival to spring.
Get ready to flip the switch! Dodgers gonna carry 16 pitchers to begin season. That leaves 3 bench players and one is Barnes. So Rios, Lux, Pillar, Alberto and Lamb fighting for two spots. Who stays and who goes? Pillar hasn’t done enough. Either has Lux. I’d put him in CF in OKC in case Bellinger bombs. I’d give Bellinger 3 months. If they want to maximize depth then they keep Lamb and Alberto and send Rios down. But he has looked so good. Tough call. Gonna be some upset guys!
Says you. The tweet from Juan Toribio was deciding between 15-16 pitchers. Kahnle won’t be ready, neither will Ferguson or Bickford. So, now you’re talking about making a 40 man decision to keep that extra pitcher. Might be Greene, because he has the most experience. I think the really fat former Giant Moronta hasn’t done enough and his fastball is a few ticks lower than it was when he was dominant. I doubt that Almonte is going to beat out either of those guys. The guys already optioned to minor league camp probably aren’t in the running.
So, it probably comes down to Greene and Moronta because they can possibly use another right hander. Lux sure looks like the odd man out. Alberto is a guaranteed contract and doesn’t have any options, so he makes the team. Lamb and Alvarez both look interesting but both require 40 man roster moves. Alvarez has been arguable better than Lamb this Spring.
The Dodgers sure have a propensity to carry as many pitchers as possible, so I’m not going to rule out a 16 man staff, but it sure doesn’t seem likely.
I’ll believe that when I see it. 15 pitchers is too much. No way they go with 16!
Today’s Confirmed Lineup 4PM EST
RF Mookie Betts R
1B F. Freeman L
SS Trea Turner R
DH Max Muncy L
3B J. Turner R
C Will Smith R
CF Chris Taylor R
2B H. Alberto R
LF Kevin Pillar R
SP Ryan Pepiot R
This is a good lineup for today. The top three are locks for just about every day. They need to get their reps.
Muncy and JT need to get ABs.
Barnes should play one in a row always, so Smith is in there.
CT3 Better start getting used to CF with Belli struggling and Lux on his way to AAA for more time in the outfield.
It looks like Alberto might just beat out Lux for 2B.
Pillar is being tricked into thinking he’s got a shot at the opening day roster. If he really did, he would be in CF. Pollock needs a rest day.
Bellinger might have hit (of lock of) himself into a platoon in CF with CT3 and Alberto at 2B. Alberto hits lefties, CT3’s splits are neutral and if you’re gonna let Belli hit, it might as well be against lefties.
I still don’t see Muncy at 2B much even though he says it’s his preferred position. It sure looks like Rios might get sent down at the start of the season, or Muncy starts on the IL.
Dodgers hitting coaches Robert Van Scoyoc and Brant Brown just spoke. On Cody Bellinger, they said he’s acclimating to his body now that his shoulder feels healthy again and the focus right now, Brown said, is “trying to be more in tune with what the real is versus the feel.”
Brown continued, “We want him to be the best. He wants himself to be the best. Whether or not we’re doing things on a daily basis is just because he’s really trying to navigate on what his feels are. And sometimes we all know a hitter’s feels will deceive them.”
Also, Baseball America has their annual look at which players scouts are predicting big years from based on what they’re seeing in spring training. SPOILER: Bobby Miller makes an appearance.
($$$$$$)
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/mlb-scouts-identify-20-players-turning-heads-at-2022-spring-training/
No surprise. Bobby is sitting 101 is what I’ve been reading. Unbelievable. Who the hell SITS 101?
Apparently Maddux Bruns is making the opposition look ridiculous. Bueller, Urias, May, Bruns and Miller next year?
Bear I may be wrong but did Charlie Neal live in Compton California in the 50s
No. Charlie did not move to California until the Dodgers did in 1958. I am not sure exactly where his house was.
A lot of people are talking about adding Lamb, Pillar to some extent, and now possibly a pitcher from the group of non-roster invitees. Hey, don’t forget about Alvarez!
Who goes? You’re gonna have to DFA somebody.
Here’s the bottom of the barrel on the 40 man…
Zack McKinstry. Could be a good super utility guy, but very redundant with Gavin Lux. He’s still just 26 years old and he het pretty well in limited action this Spring. Ready to give up on him already?
Jacob Amaya. Hasn’t hit since rookie ball where everyone hits. Possibly the best SS glove in the org. Just 23 years old. Honestly, I don’t know why he’s on the 40 man. I wouldn’t think twice about a DFA.
Darien Núñez. He’s 29 years old with a crazy back story defecting from Cuba. He’s been basically unhittable in the minors and touches 98 as a lefty bullpen piece with a Plus Plus changeup.
Grove and Jackson are the other two guys and both are younger and have more upside that Nunez. Both are right handed and with the number of lefty pitchers the Dodgers have on the 40 man, seem to be less expendable than Núñez.
For those that want Lamb on the roster. Right now, Eddie Rios has been by far the best hitter on the Dodgers and he plays the same positions as Lamb unless you believe Lamb can handle outfield, where there isn’t a clear need. What are the chances he’s going to be playing in the outfield any time soon? If Belli sucks and you really want to send him to AAA to start the season, it might make more sense to just deal with Pillar, since you know he’ll provide great defense and you can pencil him in for an OPS around 700 instead of weakening two positions by having Lamb in RF and moving Betts to CF. No thanks!
Stash Lamb and Pillar in the minors until you need one of them due to injury. Rios absolutely earned a spot on the roster, if not a starting job. This is assuming that Belli and Muncy make the opening day roster. I would be tempted to put both of them on the IL to start the season. Let’s see what happens during the remaining games.
I found a bottle, rubbed it, a genie came out a granted me three wishes. I used the first one on Belli. Let’s see if the goes back to MVP form.
Can Duffy or Bickford go onto the 60 retroactive to last year, or did that window slam shut?
I don’t think it needs to be retroactive. I’m pretty sure Duffy will go onto the 60 whenever they need the roster spot and I’m pretty sure the 40 man sits at 42 right now. Bauer is on there and is on Admin leave which accounts for 1 of the overage and Duffy not on the 60 day right now probably counts towards the other.
I don’t think Bickford is going to be a 60 day guy, but I could be wrong. The latest is that he’s healthy now, but is behind the schedule.
Duffy can go on the 60 Day IL, not retroactive to last year. According to Roberts, Bickford is not hurt, just a sore arm and will probably hit the 15 Day IL to start the season because he hasn’t appeared in a game this Spring.
Unclear if wealth inequality is considered political.
If so, please anyone (anywhere) delete this immediately.
I find it a serious issue and one that doesn’t seem to be political (unless you consider economics political, I guess.)
Summarized From an Australian newspaper:
Across the Western world wealth inequality is being usurped by housing inequality. Many people of my generation (and younger) are likely to become single-issue voters over this problem
People who want to live in Sydney need to save for 16.6 years (if saving 15 per cent of their gross annual income each year) while spending 60.4 per cent of their annual income a year once they have a mortgage.
Not surprisingly, homeownership rates for 25 to 34-year-olds in Australia reportedly have nosedived from 61 per cent in 1981 to about 37 per cent today.
This has some serious hidden costs–most profound being that the rising cost of housing is discouraging family formation.
In 1976, in Australia, 48% of couples had children living with them at home, in 2016, it’s just 37%.
A 2016 British study found that after controlling for other variables, a 10% increase in home prices correlated with a 1.3% decrease in birthrates.
My son and I were talking about that very issue today.
We don’t have the answer, but if you decide to tax the wealthy disproportionally, then they will just manipule whatever they have to do to avoid the tax (changing residences, etc.).
Personally, I think a “Use Tax” is part of the solution, but I am far from an economist.
Ironic, I had a long debate with a friend over this yesterday.
I agree, the issues isn’t political. But the solutions being offered almost always are. Which is likely why they haven’t worked. Economics doesn’t care who any one of us voted for. Economics plays by it’s own rules. Unfortunately, a lot of people think they can “wish” economic reality away with their political ideology. Economics always wins in the end.
Here in California we’ve had a persistent housing shortage for a better part of 30 years. With the exception of a few years during the great recession, housing costs have increased consistently for that whole period of time. CA is known to be one of the most difficult States to build new construction. Left leaning cities like LA and San Francisco have extremely unfriendly regulations for landlords (rent control) and very strict building regulations. Not only is it very difficult to build in general, large investors and developers are warry of both current and future regulations. Cities that lean Right are dominated by NIMBA (Not In My Back Yard) regulations to restrict housing density (large minimum lot sizes, for example) and often have caps on the number of new building permits they can issue each year. The result is we have a massive housing shortage. Shockingly, that resulted in incredible increases in both rent rates and single family home prices (economics always wins).
I feel for young people entering their most productive years. As they do not have the available options that I did at their age. I purchased my home almost 20 years ago. I could not afford my own home if I had to purchase it at the market price today. I’ve certainly benefited from the scenario. A whole generation may be left out of the benefits of home ownership. Which means they rent. Which means their cost of housing will likely rise yearly for the foreseeable future and they will not benefit at all from asset appreciation. That has a massive impact on wealth inequality. My own housing cost has actually gone down in the last 20 years as I’ve refinanced multiple times and have benefited greatly from the low interest rate environment in the past years. Those who rent have seen their housing costs go nowhere but up, year after year.
I was unaware that Australia had a similar problem. It’s really a shame. I fear my kids will get stuck in this cycle of renting for most of their life. Or will choose to move to a State with much lower housing costs (and also much fewer opportunities).
Solutions have to be pragmatic. Instead they all seem political driven and/or ideologically driven. Or just flat out indifference combined with narrow self interest..
I often joke:
In CA, how do you know somebody is going to join the Sierra Club?
They just closed escrow on their new mansion with a great view.
I just feel like we weren’t “asleep” at the wheel when so much wealth creation was consolidated so precisely, but nobody had a clue how to deal with it and the system isn’t designed to deal with something that profound and ahistorical quickly.
Totally without answers am I.
BTW: NRDC and Sierra Club member here! Have a reasonably nice house, but no real view.
I wasn’t disparaging the Sierra Club per se. More so that some of the wealthiest land owners (especially on the coast) often support environmental causes simply out of self interest. They are used as a tool to stop land development not in the interest of current land owners.
There was a case many years ago (I can’t remember all the details) where an environmental group had filed suit to stop a development over an endangered fly. It was later discovered by a reporter that the lawsuit was funded by a developer who had an approved project adjacent. The developer’s own new houses would sell for more with open space views and less competition.
California is a strange place.
If someone wants to make it about political ideology, then it would quickly devolve. It shouldn’t be. I think good faith people of both sides can see that it is a complex problem in need of solutions, and the ultimate goal should be home ownership, which provides the stability to raise a family.
I don’t know there are easy explanations let alone easy solutions. It’s like asking to create the perfect healthcare system.
I think Jayne is essentially correct in identifying the basic supply and demand issue. If the problem is rising prices and demand is more or less consistent, then it is an issue of supply. He makes the point that right wingers have a NIMBY argument in opposing increasing housing density, and, as a right leaning person who inhabits the right leaning media environment, I’ve heard the argument about how the left wants to “kill the suburbs.” Maybe the desire to maintain some idyllic sense of suburban life, complete with a lawn and backyard and kids playing in the street is something conservatives fear will be lost. Maybe the fear is unfounded. I don’t know, but I don’t think the desire to keep what makes non urban life attractive is necessarily a bad thing – unrealistic maybe, but not bad. People don’t want to live in cities for a reason.
On the other hand, in places like Boulder, there are environmental pressures that limit any and all housing growth, with the predictable astronomical price of home ownership when you limit supply. Boulder is a lovely place. There is an incredible amount of easy access to hiking and biking and the outdoors, which is beautiful in this part of the country. It comes at a cost.
One thing I would do immediately and without hesitation if I had any power would be to eliminate multiple home ownership for the purposes of investment. Huge multinational finance corporations like Blackrock are able to secure loans at below market because of their credit and purchase power, which they use to overpay for existing single family homes. There are stories of Blackrock buying whole neighborhoods, turning a community of home owners into renters. The scope of this type of buying is probably small in the grand scheme of things, and might not be a major factor in driving up the costs of homes, but it just seems odious. My sister rents a home currently nearby in Tustin Ranch. Her landlord is a Chinese national and her home is one of eight that this investor owns. If the goal is individual home ownership then practices like this and what Blackrock and others do should be prohibited.
Home ownership is the one thing that gives people a stake in their society. It is central to our ideal of the American Dream. We take that away and our society becomes much more unstable.
And now mortgage rates will be increasing which further complicates the issue. This is one of the reasons we moved from California to South Carolina with our two adult children. We’ll help them with down payments for new homes and their mortgage payments are less than the rents they were paying in California.
Don’t you kinda feel low mortgage rates were a problem, not a salvation?
For some it was/is and for others it isn’t.
You’ll have your answer to that question in about a year
very nice of you to do that for your kids
I knew about Charlie Neal and a lot of the guys Bear writes about from the old baseball card collection that my sister (damn her!) threw in the trash some 50 years ago. I bought thousands of cards myself, but then my best friend was given two shoeboxes of beautiful cards from the ’40s and ’50s by his cousin. We agreed to merge our collections–so there were two victims to my sister’s crime!… We handled those cards so much that they weren’t in great shape, so I doubt that they have been worth a lot. But the sentimental value was very high.
You know what would be a cool card to have now?
Eddy Alvarez, age 32, two-time Olympic medalist and Dodgers middle-infield hopeful who is tearing up spring training. Here’s a guy who got a silver medal as a speed skater in Sochi and medaled in the summer in baseball player as well.
If the OD roster was based only on spring training (and of course it shouldn’t be), Alvarez would be a lock. He’s crushing the ball. But his best hope of making it to Chavez Ravine would be for Lux or Alberto to get injured. Still, it’s clear that Alvarez has moved ahead of McKinstry and Burns on the depth chart, so we may see him at some point.
Here’s a link to an interesting story on Alvarez.
dodgers.mlblogs.com/two-time-olympian-eddy-alvarezs-winding-journey-takes-him-back-to-camelback-ranch-67ccc6933261
Oh, of course the way a society distributes its wealth is a serious issue and of course it’s political.
You are not alone Duke. In 1965, my foster father declared to me that I, at 17, was too old to be collecting cards. Most of my cards, and I had a huge box holding quite a few thousand, were in fair condition because like most kids in my era, I kept them together with rubber bands. But the older cards I have that were given to me by a friend in high school, they were in excellent shape. They were his brother’s cards and included many from the early 50’s. And there were plenty of star cards in there. Williams, Campy, Mantle, Berra, Mays. I had a Koufax rookie card too. I hid the Dodger cards and threw the rest out. It really killed me to do that. When I was getting ready to go into the Army, I gave the Dodger cards to one of his nephews. I do not know what he did with them. I never saw him again. I have a collection of cards now. The only ones that are all original are the 1959 Topps Dodgers. I have the entire team, plus reprints of cards that never were of players who were on the team, Sherry, Wills, Essegian and Chuck Churn.
Wealth inequality should not be considered a problem in the least unless those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder are being denied opportunities by those who are higher up. Imagine a negotiation just before the French Revolution in which a mediator offers the impoverished workers a standard of living which would be far superior to that of King Louis XVI. The only “downside” would be that some people would have an even higher, much higher, standard of living than the workers would. I’ve asked my high school students, after an introduction to early 20th century living standards, if they would rather be John Rockefeller, the world’s first billionaire, and live in 1916, or remain themselves in 2022. Modern lives and opportunities always win by a mile.
Those at lower rungs are often denied opportunity, and have been historically.
We don’t have to look back far in American history to see how the programs of FDR, Truman, Ike and LBJ all helped advanced the entwined causes wealth equity and social equality.
If you doubt that they are entwined, look into studies that compared how white veterans benefited more from the GI Bill and VA loans than their black peers. The difference is telling. And since the ability to pass along family wealth from one generation to next usually involves real estate, the inequal effect of these benefits were similar passed along. And I think most of here are old enough to remember when racial covenants in real estate were common practice.
My late father, a career Marine, paid aboutt $13,000 for a new tract home in Orange County in ’52. About a year ago, my siblings and I sold it for $825K in this overheated market, driven sky-high by the low interest rates that, btw, also provide helium to the stock market. But my point is that my sibs and I just got a windfall that was rooted in my parents decision to use his veteran’s benefits 70 years ago. Thanks, Mom and Dad in heaven!
But there are also guys of my vintage who were also the sons of WW2 veterans who did not get the benefits that they earned.
/www.militarytimes.com/military-honor/salute-veterans/2019/11/10/the-gi-bill-shouldve-been-race-neutral-politicos-made-sure-it-wasnt/
Just looked at some spring stats…..
A bit surprised to see that Alvarez has appeared in the most games, 12, and ties Lamb for most ABs at 24. To me this suggests they both
are getting a serious “extended look.” The article I linked explains that Alvarez has really taken to the Dodgers’ plan to rebuild his swing–and it seems to be paying off. He’s tied with Rios in HRs with 3 and has a 1.236 OPS….. Just spring, of course, but perhaps the Dodgers may have found another unpolished nugget here, as they did with Muncy, Taylor and JT.
The stats raise another question for me: Why haven’t we seen Bobby Miller?
Pepiot has thrown 6.0 innings, third-highest on the team, and the results are not great. But Miller has not appeared in a single game. The reports on him from the back fields are glowing, with his velocity touching 101 with good control. Sounds Buhleresqe. Miller is 22, but Julio debuted at 19 and Bob Welch and Brusdar at 21.
Assuming he pitches well in in OKC, I assume we’ll see him at some point this season. But a spring training baptism might help.
Here’s a better article re wealth inequality, with more of a focus on real estate.
https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits